


Asunder

by Hollybush



Series: The Wayside Universe [2]
Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types, Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Happy Ending, M/M, Mention of the dreaded fiancee but fear not, More road trip adventures, Why is there always more
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-28
Updated: 2020-02-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:02:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22940692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hollybush/pseuds/Hollybush
Summary: In the end, it's not so much an end as a beginning.Or: Oliver calls, and Elio answers. And that's the way it goes.
Relationships: Oliver/Elio Perlman
Series: The Wayside Universe [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1648711
Comments: 18
Kudos: 118





	Asunder

**Author's Note:**

> What do you know – for the longest time, I thought for sure I’d be back here with more stories. After about a year, I figured I thought wrong. Another 6 months and instead of cleaning up the hard drive and deleting things, here I am, finishing them and putting them up instead.  
> Very much inspired by the lovely people who commented on the ghostly apparition of the Deliver Me-universe extension, here is another long-believed-to-be-dead offering.  
> This one is not part of Deliver Me, but rather fits in with A Mile Wide, which….reading that would probably make sense of this one, but you do you.  
> (if you want to skip it: Instead of saying goodbye at the train station after Bergamo, Oliver asks Elio to come with him and, in a desperate attempt to make the summer last, they go on a bit of a road trip. At the beginning of this, we catch up with our heroes as that adventure draws to an end)
> 
> A special mention to oliveroliver, whose lovely words have made many a day. 
> 
> Here’s to you all!

It ends because it has to. He wants to hate it without inhibitions but he’s been trying to be grateful for beginnings, which means acknowledging that things that begin must also end and the voice reminding him of that sounds too much like his father’s to ignore.

He _is_ grateful, deep down. He knows he will be able to admit that soon enough but for now he’s lost in the unfairness of it all. His entire summer has been made up of uncontrollable joy and overwhelming sadness and the heat of summer and pure _want_ , and he’s exhausted. He feels like he could sleep, truly sleep, for a week. He longs for it a little bit. He savours the feeling because he likes longing for things, enjoys the heavy pull of it, lets it weigh him down.

They had a summer that in its best moments seemed very nearly endless. There was Crema and then Bergamo and then there was Seattle and San Francisco and Las Vegas and New Orleans and countless stops in between, of which he’ll forever remember only the shape of Oliver’s body next to his. Sun-burnt skin and lukewarm sweet tea. The soft whirring of ceiling fans and the smell of suntan lotion.

But endless summers are things of novels, not of reality. The shifting of seasons signalling endings and beginnings, inescapable. They found a loophole to inhabit for a little while but the summer fades away and so the loophole does too.

He’s always felt there was a gravitas to the final days of summer, where you know that fall is just around the corner but you can’t _feel_ it yet because the nights are still abuzz with cicadas and mosquitos and you can’t imagine ever not feeling that dry heat.

It’s that same sensation now, where he knows that soon enough he and Oliver will say goodbye and that he’ll go home and continue to wake up in a life that doesn’t include Oliver or any of _this,_ but he can’t imagine it.

**

He wonders, just a little bit and only sometimes, if maybe he’s too serious about it. For what it’s supposed to be.

He hears others, friends and cousins and classmates, talk about first loves, and they make it sound like adventures to laugh about later with fond nostalgia. Sun-dappled memories never to be forgotten, yet never to be re-lived.

But there is too much of himself in this, too much of himself in Oliver. It lives in him, this summer.

**

They say goodbye, _but is it really, must we, can we_ , at the airport in New York. Elio is moving on to his aunt in Brooklyn until his parents get there, the day after. Oliver will be in New York as well, but they agreed not to say goodbye anywhere else than the airport.

Airports and car seats and summer sun.

It would have been perfect if it had been a little less real.

**

Elio is the one to ask, right as they turn to part ways, but he does it jokingly and manages a smile to go along with it.

_Can we do this again? Next year maybe?_

He takes note not of the surprise on Oliver’s face, but of the contemplation, the lack of immediate rejection.

_Or sooner? I can work. I can find money._

And he can. He will. He won’t have to, knows he won’t have to, but this is his and he’s willing. Willing to pay his part of the price.

Oliver smiles at him, but it’s a smile that says he’s not entirely present for it. His thoughts are elsewhere.

Elio thinks they’re still on him but he can’t be sure, only hope.

_Oliver._

He pulls at his sleeve and feels like a child but it works. Oliver’s smile a tad more real, slightly more like a grin.

_I’ll call you._

It’s the stupidest thing Oliver’s said in months and he tells him so.

He’s rewarded with a laugh, a real one, wide and bright and blue.

_I will. I’m not just saying it to get rid of you. I’ll call when I get home and I’ll….I’ll think of something._

He feels too much like that child still, pulling at a sleeve for attention, and he wants to even the shaky ground they’re on. The bridge between them should be crossed by both so they can meet in the middle.

_You mean ‘we’ right. We’ll think of something._

And Oliver nods and smiles again and it’s still only a half of one, but his eyes stay with Elio so it’s better.

**

He does call. He calls after two days, to let Elio know he’s arrived home and sort of settled, and trying. Did his laundry and picked up groceries and can’t get used to his normal life. His tone is light, but there’s a raw edge to it.

_Me neither_ , Elio says, elaborates about his day and his aunt and his cousins, but the conversation is stilted and shallow. Neither of them comfortable saying what wants to be said when they don’t know what life looks like on the other end.

After that, it goes quiet for a while. Elio’s family packs up, his cousins scattering off all over the country and Elio chooses Boston. He doesn’t choose it for any other reason than he’d already been looking at Boston before he ever met Oliver and it takes him out of New York and that makes it feel like it’s an actual decision.

Every single day, he doesn’t call Oliver and he’s both proud of himself and infuriated because of it.

**

Oliver calls at the end of the year and tells them he’s getting married. Elio stays away from the phone for a good while after that.

He hates that Oliver called while they’re back in Italy. Hates that the number he dialled from a house he shares with his fiancée connects to a place that belongs so completely to _them_.

_ElioandOliver._

He hides bits of himself in the days that follow, roams around the town and the garden and snaps at Mafalda. He makes up his mind and takes the postcard and billowy, the keychains he bought on their road trip and all the little note books he stole from hotel rooms and drowns them in a drawer, underneath stuff he hasn’t looked at in years.

He leaves it there for 4 whole days and then puts everything back.

. 

**

Oliver calls again in early February. Elio is back in Boston, his parents still in Europe to visit friends before flying back over.

_You have a reading week coming up, right?_

He doesn’t ask how he knows that and he doesn’t say anything.

Oliver seems to read his silence for the answer it is though.

_How about a trip? I can pick you up. We’ll go to the mountains_.

He says yes without pretence. Why waste time when they’ve got so little.

**

Oliver picks him up on Saturday morning, grins at him from behind the wheel, amusement on his face at seeing Elio struggle with his backpack. There’s relief there too, though, as strong as Elio feels it.

_A week?_

_Yeah, give or take. I’ll have you back by Friday, Saturday morning at the latest. I have classes on Monday._

Oliver pulls away from the curb, their car joining the many others looking for an escape from the city.

It’s the first breath he’s taken since last summer.

He glances at Oliver’s face, eyes hidden behind sun glasses, and his heart beats a little faster and he decides that he’s not asking. Not yet.

**

They don’t go too far into the mountains, there’s too much snow still this time of year, but they drive up to the White Mountain forests, and it turns out Oliver’s booked two nights there already. It’s quiet despite the nice weather they’ve been having and the woman at the reception desk tells them they can extend their stay if they want. They look at each other, then out the door at the green and the quiet and the sun, and book another two nights

They make a fire because they can, Oliver useless at something Elio excels at. He shrugs, shoulders large and beckoning, and tells Elio he’s used to it by now.

_You know everything._

_Not about the things that matter_ is at the tip of his tongue, but he holds them back because they’re not true anymore.

**

They go about things in a much calmer sense now. It’s both unnerving and nice. It makes Elio feel like this isn’t strange or wrong or something to be ashamed of. It makes it feel like they’re a couple on holiday, used to each other and to togetherness, ingrained routines travelling along with them.

He unpacks a little, pokes at the fire and munches on an apple while Oliver takes a shower. He comes out of it still wet, a ridiculously small towel around his hips, and reaches for Elio’s wrist.

He pulls him in, half-hearted protest muffled against the pale warmth of Oliver’s chest, his arms coming up around him by default. It’s easy from there on out.

**

Oliver thought ahead a bit more, always a better planner, and brought food with them. Bread and snacks and drinks. Red wine and cigarettes and fruit that is out of season and that they’ll have to eat before it goes off.

They have sex and sleep and eat and talk. They don’t leave the cabin at all on the second day, choosing the comfort and safety of their blankets and the shared warmth of their bodies in front of the fire.

Their last day though, they go for a hike and the entire trail reminds Elio of the hike they did in Bergamo and the goodbye that was supposed to follow after but didn’t and he can’t help but wonder if maybe the goodbye that is looming now, only a few days away, can magically move back as well.

He wonders if ‘later’ is all they’re going to have and admits to himself, immediately after, that he prefers all these _laters_ over nothing at all. He hides the bitterness that comes with that thought because he doesn’t want to tell Oliver that, once upon a summer, he’d have preferred the nothing.

**

They leave White Mountain and move on to Green Mountain for a night. They go fishing and Elio hates it and they return the poles to the man after 40 minutes, Oliver crying with laughter.

Elio pouts all the way back to their cabin but he’s secretly smug about being the one to make Oliver laugh that much. He doesn’t wonder about other people who might be able to do that.

**

They have to make their way back to Boston at some point and they take the slow way down so they can stop at a B&B that is supposedly haunted. They hear about it at the diner they stop at for not-quite-lunch-and-not-quite-dinner and Oliver latches onto it. Their room is creepy mostly because of the terrible décor but they’re able to laugh at something ordinary together and the relief they both feel at that overrules the stupidity of paying triple the worth of this room.

The only room left turned out to be a suite with two bedrooms, so they mess up one bed to make it look like it was slept in and they don’t leave the other one for anything other than meeting the pizza delivery boy at the front desk. He gets a disapproving look from the lady manning the desk and he charms her into forgiving him by talking at her in more French than English and offering her a piece. She doesn’t take it but she softens and smiles him back upstairs.

Oliver smiles at him like he’s charmed too, so he drops the pizza on the bedside table and his shirt on the floor and pushes at Oliver’s chest until he falls back on the bed, eyes crinkled and food forgotten.

**

Oliver drops him off after lunch and this time, the smile he gives him from behind the steering wheel is grim.

_You’ll call me?_

Elio knows what he’s saying with those words, knows what he is telling Oliver he is willing to do. Oliver grimaces more than smiles but nods.

_Yeah, I’ll call you._

**

He doesn’t until late May.

_My classes end first week of June. When do you finish?_

He tells his parents that he’ll fly into Linate and meet them in Crema at the end of June and boards an Amtrak to New York City, where Oliver meets him with a car, another rental, and they drive up to Montreal.

**

Montreal allows them a taste of Italy in the sense that it looks and feels different from any place they’ve been in the US. They get a room right in the city centre and spend their nights walking along the city streets, drifting in and out of bars.

They have cold beers at one of the many Irish pubs, and let themselves be taught about the history of the green isles and the differences between lagers and ales. The men telling them their stories are only barely legible but they laugh with their mouths wide open and hand out drinks and peanuts like it’s a free-for-all and they never look at Oliver and Elio like they care about how they got to be there.

They wander into a seedy dive bar with dim lighting and topless girls serving drinks. They watch shady guys do shadier card tricks to rid people of their change. They admire the way the girls go about their business, working their way across the tables and serving shots alongside shiny smiles, dodging fake charm and wandering hands. They take a liking to Oliver and Elio, who don’t stare too much and offer politeness and tips and patience. One of the girls drops a plate of snacks in front of them after Elio helps her move some chairs around when she nearly trips over them in her high yellow heels, and she winks at him every time she passes their table.

She slips him a note at the end of the evening, but not for anything he’s not interested in.

They follow her directions to the address she wrote down quickly, in between customers, as he waited patiently and watched her nimble fingers pull one beer after another from the tap.

They find a door in about fourteen shades of green and purple and behind that door they find a guy selling tickets. He raises as an eyebrow at the two of them but offers nothing other than a price. Oliver hands over the last of his cash and the guy points at the beaded curtain in the doorway behind him. Two steps into the door and Elio knows why that waitress slipped him that note instead of telling them about this club in front of all those other men.

They have the time of their life that evening, though. There’s music and drinks and costumes and no judgment.

It’s a good night to be in Montreal.

**

The summer he’s spent the whole year dreading passes in a haze of friends and drinks and phone calls with Oliver.

Every week he calls the house and spends a few minutes talking shop with Elio’s parents before they let him take over. He hovers by the door in those moments, impatient for them to finish but nervous for what’s to come. Every week he wonders, right before he answers Oliver’s questioning tone, is this is the call that ends it all. Every week he almost hopes that his parents will ask about the engagement. They don't and the fact that they probably don't for his sake makes him want to be sick. 

He feels younger than ever in those conversations, as he fills Oliver in on his university courses, which professors he likes, what he’s learning. But when he’s out with Marzia and Chiara and the others, and he listens to their laughs and their fears, bears witness to their lives, he feels too old for his skin. Marzia throws him glances sometimes, like she knows what’s different about him, knows what else he’s holding back, but she never asks and he doesn’t offer.

It’s not a bad summer but it’s not one he cares to remember.

**

In October, he calls last-minute.

_I didn’t think I’d get any time but I’ve got about 5 days. I can borrow a buddy’s cabin in Vermont. Got his car too._

The cabin is, in fact, not so much a cabin in the lost-in-the-woods, rustic, consisting-of-one-room sort of way, as it is a luxury cabin with three bedrooms and a fire place in every one of those. It is rustic, though and very much lost in the woods.

Oliver’s buddy apparently uses it to take his family skiing, but they only do that once a year so the rest of the time it just stays empty.

Elio feels a little sorry for it, when they arrive and marvel at the remote vastness of the landscape. He tells Oliver, who looks at him like he’s a wonder and tells him that they’ll have to spend a lot of time in the house, then, to make it feel less lonely. Elio throws his backpack at him in response, heading for the door with Oliver’s laughter trailing after him.

They don’t go skiing, even though Oliver’s buddy had said they could and all the gear is there. They find a pair of sleds though and when they also discover about 8 pairs of moon boots in the hallway closet, their fate is sealed.

They eat more snow than anything else that week, but their faces are red from cold and laughter and they light the fire in the master bedroom every night and they don’t even bother dressing if they’re not going outside.

They eat cheese fondue in the middle of the night and chocolate sauce off each other’s bodies (only once because it doesn’t work at all like they hoped it would, it’s messy and it hurts when it dries and their skin sticks together, but it’s fun) and it’s slipping into carefree and Elio can’t help but feel like this is supposed to be their normal.

**

The months after that slip away from them, Thanksgiving and Chanukah and Christmas quick to chase away the lingering melancholy Vermont has left in him, and then before he knows it, it’s spring break.

He’s on the verge of booking a train to see his cousins in the city when Oliver calls.

He’s being sent to do a talk at a grad fair in Paris and since the university’s paying his way, he can afford to pay for Elio.

Elio’s offended at the offer, but only because he wants to pay his own ticket and even if Oliver doesn’t think he should worry about it, he understands it.

He books his ticket from Boston and they meet at Gare du Nord, where Oliver waits for him with baguettes and wine and they make their way to Buttes-Chaumont, where there’s way too many people but not as many as in the Tuileries and they spend the rest of the day watching people spend their afternoon the same way.

The university’s put Oliver up in an old but nice hotel in Montmartre. They can see part of the Sacre-Coeur from the window and there’s a tiny balcony to lean out and smoke cigarettes over.

It’s Paris, so it’s crowded and noisy and hot even in spring, so they leave the windows open and listen to the traffic rushing past beneath their fluttering curtains. Oliver’s fingertips trail up and down his stomach in sleepy way and Elio falls asleep like that, his lips pressing half a smile into Oliver’s arm.

Oliver has to prepare a little for work, but the fair is only one afternoon, really, so Elio keeps to himself that day and strolls around the city, soaking up the French. The other days are spent in and out of the many museums the city has to offer, paying for overpriced petit dejeuners at little bistros on charming corners and slugs of wine from cheap bottles on the Ponts Neuf and Des Arts and Notre Dame.

It’s Elio’s favourite of the trips they’ve taken because it feels the most like what their life would look like if they were actually together.

He doesn’t allow himself to spend too much time with that notion, but the flight home is heavy-handed and try as he might, he can’t keep the smile on his face for longer than it takes to answer ‘coffee’, ‘tea’ and ‘no, thank you’ to the flight attendants.

**

The next call comes on a weekend in late May. Elio is preparing for end-of-year exams and Oliver’s busy wrapping up the year, but it’s been too long since Paris and Oliver proposes a weekend away.

Portland’s not too far, he offers.

_We could go for lobster, find a lighthouse. We can go tomorrow._

_Tomorrow?_

_Yeah, let’s go._

So they do.

There’s another rental car and they drive down to Plymouth first, walk around and go to Plymouth Rock. They can’t stay that long but that’s okay. They’re here more for the feeling that they’re normal than for anything else.

They drive up to Portland that same night and they don’t get in until after midnight so they hide away in their room and in each other’s bodies and they set an alarm for early, so they can go up to the lighthouse they saw on the way here.

They get coffees and pastries to have as they make the trek. The morning is crisp and truly beautiful and the smell of coffee mixes with the scent of the ocean and it’s so good it’s intoxicating.

They do have the lobster, for dinner that night, before they head back for their last night at the hotel, and it’s good, but it’s got nothing on the rest of the evening. They do nothing but sit on the balcony of their hotel room, staring out at the water and taking in all the sounds and smells, their voices only meant for each other.

**

When the ending does come, it does so without fanfare.

“When is your wedding?”

They’re at their first stop of the trip. It’s almost midnight, having left late due to Oliver’s last late class and the traffic around New York that eats up time like it’s hungry, neither of them willing to stop driving until they’d left the state.

The motel is non-descript, the neon outside, boasting a pool and free breakfast, shining too bright for the flimsy curtains.

They’ve planned a trip around the country again. Oliver calling early June, barely a week after their trip to Portland.

They could go to San Francisco again, or San Diego, stick to California and then there’d be room for a flight somewhere.

_To Italy maybe? Be nice to see your parents again_.

He’d nearly screamed at the phone at those words.

He wanted to ask, so _so_ badly, if this meant that the end was coming, if the wedding was close or had already happened. If this would be the trip that finally turned _later_ into _goodbye_.

The sadness crept in early this time, before they’d even left. Before Oliver had rolled up outside his dorm, in his own car this time. One he’d bought last month, apparently. It’s old but seems decent, but Elio’s not one for cars and wouldn’t know how to argue about them anyway. The backseat holds both their bags and a cooler. There’s blankets there as well and Elio _wants_ to be sure that those are meant for them to use on their trips, they’ve been cold often enough to justify it, but he’s not. He can’t shake the idea that it wasn’t Oliver who put them there, that it was his fiancée, thinking of picnics and trips to the beach and babies in the back seat.

He tries not to care but he can feel the end making its way to them, slowly but at a steady pace, and he can’t bring himself to sit it out. His skin itches with it.

They’ve been on time not borrowed but stolen, taken from time they were both supposed to spend with other people. Lies and twists and turns and not being able to mention that _yeah, I’ve been to San Francisco, I had corn dogs in the park and a strawberry milkshake and there was a moment there, beneath the stars and the lamps and the high rises that I thought maybe I’d never been as happy_ , because that’d mean having to explain when he’d been there and who he was with and…and he hates it. It sours in his stomach like coffee left out too long.

So he has to ask. He knew he was going to, but he’d thought he’d hold out longer. Now that the moment is here, he has no idea why he ever thought he’d be able to wait.

Oliver turns at him, an incredulous look on his face, mouth open. He looks older and weary and for a brief moment, Elio can see what these months have really done to Oliver. That everything that he’s been feeling, Oliver has too.

“I’m not.”

“What?”

The word drags out a bit, a huff of a laugh, like maybe Oliver’s joking and he’s expected to laugh along.

“No. Jesus, Elio.”

_Wait. What??_

“Wait, you’re not getting married?”

He’s passive, unable to move, but Oliver isn’t.

Oliver hadn’t taken his shoes off yet, and he’s moving now, from one side of the bed to the other, his frantic pacing made of heavy steps, his words thundering. 

“You thought I was just planning my wedding while taking you away for every break I have?”

Elio can’t seem to grasp hold of how Oliver can sound so incredulous, so shocked.

_How was he supposed to think anything else?_

“Well…yeah.”

Oliver’s mid-step but Elio’s words make him turn so quickly he loses his balance a little, arm stretching out into the void.

“I guess you _would_ think that. I didn’t exactly tell you otherwise.” He looks at Elio and then away, and it looks for a moment like he’s about to cry.

“No. No, I’m not getting married.”

Oliver sighs, heavily, like he has to force it and shakes his head a little.

“I was still sort of with her the first time we…when we went to White Mountain? But I knew when I dropped you off, that I had to break it off for good. I knew I was going to call you again, I was already planning it in my head. I couldn’t plan a honeymoon with someone while I was actually planning how to work a trip with you around it.”

_Huh._

He’s spent over a year preparing for this conversation, gone over every possible outcome. He can’t think of a single thing to say.

“Oh.”

Oliver snorts, but it’s bitterness not amusement.

“Ha. Yeah. Oh. Jesus.”

Oliver’s not allowed to be bitter, though. Not here.

“You never told me. You never said…”

He watches as Oliver slumps down on one of the beds, his hands coming up to fist in his hair, then down again, fingers clenched.

“Well, no. I didn’t. but….”

It’s like he’s stepping back, watching himself have this conversation, judging the scene like it’s a movie.

“But what?”

Another deep sigh and blue eyes come up to meet his.

“Well, I never mentioned her either, did I? I never mentioned anyone else but you.”

It occurs to Elio now, that Oliver’s gone from pacing and frantic gestures to his defeated slump on the bed and he’s still in the exact same spot. He tries to get his feet to move, but they won’t budge, all his energy bundling up in anger. 

“I thought you just didn’t want to hurt my feelings or….or something, or didn’t want to talk about it with me..or..”

His sentence trails off, his fingers coming up to pull at his lip they’re trying to force the words to come.

“You really thought I was just….planning my wedding all this time?”

It hurts to hear the pain in Oliver’s voice, the rough edge of it seeping into his words, but he’s still caught up in the words themselves.

“Yes! Yes, I thought you were planning your wedding because you told me on the phone, you asshole, that you were getting married!”

“Yeah, like a year and a half ago! And then I never even mentioned it again, never mentioned anyone else!”

He can feel the anger curling around other emotions, feels relief and something that resembles happiness hiding underneath, but it’s still anger that wins out.

“Well, you should have told me! I thought we were like….”

Oliver sits up at that, eyes focused as he zeroes in on Elio’s face.

“What? What did you think?”

“I don’t know! I don’t even…I thought this was goodbye maybe. This trip. Because you mentioned Italy and….”

Oliver’s eyes don’t leave his but they’re spitting fire, even if his voice remains level. It’s the calm before the storm.

“And you figured I’d want to say hi to your parents, have dinner, then what? Have sex with their son in their house before I went off to get married?”

The anger makes way for indignation.

“Don’t make it sound like I’m insane or something, you..... You were still with her when we..... You never even mentioned her at all, even when we…even then.”

“I know. I know. But…”

Another heavy breath, like he’s gearing up for something he needs courage to do.

“It’s not….I’m not making excuses. I know what I did. I do, Elio, really.”

His eyes are cloudy and tense, little lines pinching the tender skin around them, but he doesn’t look away.

“But I wasn’t really with her…like I am with you. She and I have known each other forever, our families know each other. It was just assumed and honestly, until I met you, I thought I was fine with it. So when I came home last summer and my mother started with me again, I thought I might as well get it over with. I think I spent all of 6 days with her that year, but I wanted to see you and then after that mountain trip…I couldn’t exactly tell myself I was fine with any of it. So I broke it off, like, the day after.”

He knows he’s relieved at this, that this outcome is better than any of the ones he’s imagined, but his heart breaks with every word, his throat aching.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

His voice is a painful whisper, fighting to get out.

“Why didn’t you tell me any of this?”

There’s resignation pervading the air and it feels like giving up.

“Honestly, It never even….we didn’t really talk in between. You never called me, I always called you.”

He’s not giving up, but he’s not taking the blame for this either.

“Because I thought you were engaged! I didn’t think I could call you! I wanted to call you every day. Every single fucking day!”

And then it’s as if the air’s been let out of a balloon, both of them deflating into exhausted silence.

He asks because he has to.

“You really wanted me to call you?”

It had never occurred to him, that maybe Oliver was wondering about Elio’s investment in this. That Oliver assumed Elio’d be the one to walk away.

“Yes. Of course I did. Of course I do. I don’t even…I’ve spent the entire year finding ways to see you. It’s all I’ve done, it’s all I’ve thought about.”

He can see it. He doesn’t understand it, really, because he’s been _so_ in this, has put everything he is in this and has since that summer. But he can see it, in his mind, how Oliver might have looked at it.

“You should have told me.”

There’s a nod and it’s enough for now.

“I know.”

The air is heavy with what’s been said, but it’s better than an air heavy with what’s unsaid. They’ve had that too and it’s infinitely worse.

“So…what now?”

He dares to ask now. He feels the need for explanations and promises crawl up, knows he’ll ask for much more later, but he can keep his calm for now, for just a little bit longer.

There’s pause that fills a room and then Oliver sits up once more, shoulders straight and eyes serious.

“I think that should probably be your decision.”

His eyes are so focused, so intense, it reminds Elio of Crema.

_Can I kiss you?_

He’d felt seen, that night. Seen and heard and understood. He’s beginning to understand how rare that is, hasn’t ever had that with anyone else.

“What do _you_ want, Elio? I don’t ask you that enough because I’m afraid of the answer, but I think we’ve just proven the flaws in that tactic.”

Elio knows Oliver is genuine in his guilt here, has always known it. It’s why he’s always accepted it, let him take the lead, let him be the one to call. He’s not a pushover, never was, but he’s always been aware of the reality of both their lives and that it was more difficult, for Oliver, in a way. In many ways.

Now, though. Now, knowing that actually, maybe it wasn’t as difficult and complicated as Elio has been assuming…now…

He feels more like himself again, the familiar urge to push and prod until something gives. The way he did that afternoon in the berm, his hand on Oliver’s cock, a haughty look to hide his nerves.

“Why?”

Oliver responds like he did that day too, like he knows what Elio is angling for and he’s just about calm enough to not give in to it, because he knows they need to focus on what is really being said.

“Because I’m afraid you’ll just go along with what I want…I mean, you thought I was still getting married and you still said yes to all those trips. It’s not your fault…but..”

It’s not what he asked, but it’s an answer to a different question so he bites back the bile that threatens to spill over.

“Well, I thought it was the last time every time we went”

It’s the first time maybe that Oliver seems to shrink before his eyes, becoming smaller than Elio feels.

“I know. Shit. I know. But…now that you have options…with me I mean. It’s important, Elio, that you think about this, okay? Maybe take some time.”

It makes sense that Oliver seems so small now, because Elio is raging, indignation edging him on, making him feel larger than life in righteous anger.

“Take some time? Are you kidding? You don’t think we’ve taken enough time?”

Oliver shakes his head, his hands up in defeat, placating. It's satisfying, to be the one who needs placating. 

“I mean…”

“I know what you mean. I’m aware of how your thought process works now, actually. But I know what I want. I didn’t agree on those trips because you suggested them and I just went along with it. I said yes because I thought it was all I was ever going to get and I wanted to enjoy it until it ended.”

Oliver collapses a little more at that, and suddenly it’s really over. The anger, the indignation, the rage, there is only a swirling mixture of sadness and relief and careful hope.

“So?”

Oliver’s tone is hesitant, his words barely audible, but his eyes are clearer than they’ve been since that first night, so convinced of what he wanted and his willingness to chase after it shining blue.

“I don’t want it to end.”

He’s taken back to that afternoon in a dusty attic, the air ripe with the scent of peaches.

_I don’t want you to go._

He thinks that perhaps Oliver is reminded of that same scene, because his lips try to form a smile and grimace at the same time, meeting in the middle in a wonky sort of shape, and he steps forward. He takes one of Elio’s hands, then the other, like he’s waiting to be pushed back and comes to a halt right in front of him. One hand comes up to tilt his chin up, his lips having found their way back to a hopeful smile.

“So it doesn’t end.”

He knows they’ll be having fights over this. They’re allowed that now, so they’re coming. He’s so happy about it that for an instant, he thinks he’ll cry with laughter. He doesn’t, instead clutches at Oliver’s hand and lets one hand wander into his hair, pulls there, a little too hard.

“No, it doesn’t end.”

If his kiss is harsh and made up of punishment and anger as well as love, Oliver doesn’t say anything.

**

He throws his backpack into the backseat, the yellow neon loud and garish against the dull brown of the seat.

He lets an arm drop over the roof of the car, shakes his head so his sunglasses fall down back onto his face. They slide down a tad too far, hanging off the tip of his nose. He tilts his head back a bit, looks at Oliver over the rim of his glasses.

“So, where do we begin?”

Oliver’s answering grin is as wide as it’s ever been.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Now go make yourself a cuppa. You've earned it.


End file.
